June alt-fuel sales double year-earlier figures on Prius surge

hybrid

Alt-fuel vehicle sales across all automakers in June more than doubled from a year earlier.

The Prius may be better associated with soft-pedaling drivers, but June showed us that the world's best-selling hybrid is figuratively smoking its tires when it comes to getting some distance from a brutal 2011, lifting all U.S. alt-fuel sales figures as a result.

Overall U.S. alt-fuel vehicle sales across all automakers in June more than doubled from a year earlier to more than 42,000 vehicles, as Americans continued to shop for fuel-sipping vehicles despite the fact that U.S. gas prices, which peaked this year at about $3.90 in early April, have been steadily dropping during the last three months to about $3.30 a gallon, according to AAA. With overall June auto sales estimated to have risen about 18 percent from year-earlier levels, advanced-powertrain vehicles appear to be accounting for a progressively larger percentage of cars sold.

And while some of this jump can be attributed to sales increases in General Motors' Chevrolet Volt extended-range plug in and the company's mild-hybrid sedans as well as a monthly-record number of Ford FocusElectrics sold, most of the increase can be attributed to Toyota, which was besieged last year by supply constraints stemming from the earthquake and ensuing tsunami that struck Japan last March. The Japanese automaker more than quadrupled its Prius sales from a year earlier to 19,150 units in June, with the newer Prius C, Prius V and Prius Plug-in variants collectively accounting for about 40 percent of the Prius hybrids sold. Non-Prius Toyota sales jumped more than sevenfold to 3,955, likely on the continuing popularity of the revamped Camry Hybrid. Overall, Toyota and its Lexus division boosted hybrid sales to 25,776 vehicles from 5,705 in June 2011.

As for GM, the U.S. automaker more than tripled its Volt sales from a year earlier to 1,760 units, marking June the second-best month ever for the model. Through the first six months of the year, the Volt sold 8,817 units, compared to 7,671 vehicles sold for all of last year. Overall, GM, which also sold 3,461 of its mild-hybrid Chevrolet Malibu, Buick LaCrosse and Buick Regal models, boosted alt-fuel vehicle sales from June 2011 by a factor of six to 5,383 units.

Additionally, German automakers Volkswagen and Audi increased their clean-diesel vehicle sales. VW diesel sales last month increased 22 percent from a year earlier to 7,329 units, while Audi diesel sales rose 36 percent from a year earlier to 657 vehicles.

Ford, which introduced its electric-powered version of the Focus in very limited numbers late last year, sold 89 units in June after moving just eight during the previous six months combined.

Such gains far more than offset the challenges Nissan faces to meet last year's pace for sales of its all-electric Leaf as well as continued hybrid-sales declines for Ford and Honda. The Leaf, which outsold the Volt by about 2,000 units list year, saw a 69-percent year-over-year sales drop to just 535 units. As a result, the model fell behind last year's sales pace for the first time in 2012, with the Leaf's six-months total of 3,148 units accounting for a 19-percent decline from a year earlier.

For the first half of the year, U.S. alt-fuel sales jumped 54 percent to more than 264,000 vehicles.

Finally, Mitsubishi, which came off monthly-record May of 85 units sold for its all-electric i, saw sales of the model fall to 33 units last month. And Porsche hybrid sales dropped 62 percent from June 2011.

For the first half of the year, U.S. alt-fuel sales jumped 54 percent to more than 264,000 vehicles. Toyota nearly doubled sales of its Toyota and Lexus hybrids to almost 170,000 vehicles, while GM's alt-fuel vehicle sales jumped fivefold to 24,594 units and Volkswagen diesel sales rose 33 percent to almost 43,000 vehicles.

Ford hybrid sales have dropped this year by 44 percent to 8,875 units, while Honda hybrid sales through June declined 51 percent from a year earlier to 10,565 vehicles.

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Interesting data on the Toyota Plug Prius: 1,654 April 1,086 May 695 June It was amusing how Toyota crowed about the April PIP sales, but doesn't want to talk about it now. This exponential decay, losing almost exactly 35% each month since introduction, projects forward like this: 450 July 290 Aug 187 Sep 121 Oct 78 Nov 50 Dec = 4,612 total for CY 2012. It looks like the PIP may not catch the Leaf after all.

The Volt in year one outsold the Prius in year one. The Prius was hit then with much of the same FUD as the Volt goes through now - high price, unprofitable, too mechanically complex, green ethos, carping about the appearance and styling, requires a tax credit to get the price remotely down to viable levels, not driven by market forces but by politics, etc. Toyota did not get rattled and gave the Prius time to find iits market and now the Prius is a high selling, low priced hit, a top seller in the USA, THE top seller in Japan, no longer qualifying for tax credits because it has sold so many units. A shame Toyota is trying to do to the Volt what many tried to do to the Prius.

That's only because of Gas taxes. They tax gasoline to the point where people have no choice. Fact is, the original engine was made for gasoline, gasoline is naturally cleaner burning, and those countries outside north america / mid east / russia only use diesel because they dont have gasoline themselves.

It's doing okay if you include Japan. Percentage points don't tell the whole story, since the US sales numbers are roughly flipped (this month): Leaf was 1708 June 2011, 535 June 2012. Volt was 561 June 2011, 1760 June 2012. http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2883

Meanwhile, more fossil fuel companies get massive tax subsidies: http://cleantechnica.com/2012/07/05/bloomberg-chesapeake-energy-paid-less-than-1-tax-rate-on-5-5-billion-in-profits-wth/ "Chesapeake Energy, the second largest producer of natural gas in the U.S., and the company described by its founder and CEO Aubrey McClendon as “the biggest frackers in the world,” has earned roughly $5.5 billion in pre-tax profits. To date, the company has paid $53 million in taxes. That’s an effective tax rate of under 1 percent - a massive taxpayer subsidy."

Chesapeake is a strange company. They've got an incomprehensible financial structure. They have to keep drilling like crazy because decline rates on fracked wells are so high. But natural gas prices have dropped through the floor so they have little cash coming in to pay for all the drilling. I can't see how their business works . . . they'll probably be bought-out by a bigger company eventually. Either that or they may fail spectacularly due to being over-leveraged and having such low natural gas prices.

So in June Toyota had 60% of the "Alt-fuel" market. At this rate Toyota will totally dominate as more and more vehicle will be required to be "Alt-fuel" as CAFE standards increase. GM's most successful "Alt-fuel" vehicle is the Volt and I don't see that becoming a mass market car any time soon. Honda doesn't appear to know what they are doing wrong. Maybe Ford's new entries will manage some change to Toyota.

The new Fusion with 44/47 mpg's will beat Toyota Camry, not to mention the plug in version. Plus the new hybrid and Energie C Maxes, and the 3 cyl Fiesta should do well. Ford just needs a strong competitor with the original Prius, and not the C max which only competes with the Prius V.

Toyota took time to develop Prius into "the" hybrid it is now, and it sure reaps the rewards now. Good for it. One month worth of data doesn't show a trend, though. It will be interesting to see if it stays ahead of the game and expands its share, or become complacent and fall behind, like many big car manufacturers before it. Like so many things in life, it's a game of balance. If it milks its current hybrid tech for too long without doing something drastic, it may allow others to out-innovate it. If it spends too much cash and effort pushing a paradigm shift (like Nissan is doing), it risks burning and crashing. For the sake of us all I hope it finds a way to stay relevant, but doesn't find a way to kill competition off.

There's no Japanese figure for May 2012 and June 2012, but from a recent press release saying there are ~28000 Leafs sold so far in the US and Japan (as of June 2012), that works out to about 1100 sold in Japan in May. http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nissan-global.com%2FJP%2FNEWS%2F2012%2F_STORY%2F120702-01-j.html

Stupid Honda is still trying to force feed the low-tech and inept IMA hybrid to unsuspecting American consumer. While everyone's hybrid sales increased, Honda's hybrid sales declined by 40%. Undeterred, the stupid Honda CEOs continue to shove that garbage IMA down the throats of American consumers. People are beginning to vomit at the sight of all Hondas.

You don't expect what to last? eAssist will continue to do well because it is a well-priced feature. The Volt will outsell the PIP from here on out - the PIP is grossly overpriced for what little it delivers.

That could account for some weakness. But once you are in California and a few other states where these vehicles sell well, that makes up most of the market. It is not like there is some gigantic plug-in Prius fan club in Wyoming ready to buy hundreds of them.

I would totally be willing to see Volt vs Leaf vs PIP on a state-by-state basis. Based on the huge drop in sales, I strongly suspect that the Volt crushes the PIP in every single market from here on out.

Most PiP sales will be in California anyway, because its primary draw is that you can drive it solo in a carpool lane in California. If the current availability states don't account for 85% of US PiP sales once it is nationwide, I'll be shocked. Heck, add in Texas (just Austin, really) and I bet you make it to 90%.

It's ridiculous that flex fuel vehicles, which can actually run on alternative fuel (E85 ethanol) are ignored in this list, while non plug-in hybrids (which are locked in to ONLY being able to run on gasoline), are included. Include FFVs and the situation changes drastically.